Category: Art

Kindergarten has missed a bit of art, due to lots of holidays falling on Mondays. They will be finishing up their Kandinsky squares with concentric circles next week.
First grade learned how to make cool or warm colored paper weavings after looking at Native American weavings.
Second grade embarked upon our stamp unit for the BSI post office. The students are carefully drawing birds, making every effort to fill the stamp template. They will choose the best of three drawings to publish into their final stamp.
Third grade are finishing their Brooklyn Bridge watercolor and oil pastel resist drawings.
Fourth grade are working on Doodle4Google entries: this year’s theme was to imagine the future in 2046.
Fifth grade finished their value self portraits, having paid special attention to the range of tones from black to white. The writing portion asked them to imagine where they would be in 20 years, how they would contribute to the world, and what career they might be in. The answers are fascinating! Fifth grade students began a weaving-in-the-round project.
Sixth grade are finishing up their tesselations, after having looked at the work of MC Escher. Many have begun work on their pop-art tint self portraits after we looked at the work of Warhol, Lichenstein, Oldenberg and Haring.
Seventh and eighth grade are working on radial symmetry paper sculptures utilizing Origami, after completing Doddle4Google entry forms.
Seventh grade Fine Arts Elective is finishing up drawing their hands holding a ribbon, paying particular attention to the range of tones. They are then choosing several world patterns to populate their backgrounds.
Eighth grade Fine Arts Elective have been painting a fruit still life. Both elective classes were treated to a visiting artist who taught them about gesture drawing. We’ve been practicing that as well as drawing a seated figure in preparation for the art high school auditions, the first of which took place last weekend, with more coming up in early December.

Eighth grade Fine Arts Elective students have finished drawing a still life of pears, paying particular attention to the gray scale, and value ranges. They have moved on to draw shells from observation, creating a cropped image, using view finders. Others have progressed to painting a fruit still life in acrylics. We are quite busy, as we’re putting together portfolios for entrance to arts-focused high schools in mid-October.

Seventh grade Fine Arts Elective students have been studying and sketching their hands paying particular attention to value and the gray scale. They have now embarked on drawing both hands holding a ribbon, with a focus on highlights and shadows.

Regular eighth grade and seventh grade art students continue to work on their one point perspective building drawings.

Sixth grade completed their Onomatopoeia words in the style of Roy Lichtenstein, and they look great!

Fifth grade continues to work on their graphite self portraits after having looked at Albrecht Durer’s intensely detailed self portraits.

Fourth grade will finish up their cubism self portraits in oil pastel.

Third grade finished their Op art (short for optical illusion) hands.

Second grade had an exciting time painting the patterned backgrounds of their self portraits today, remembering to wash and wipe their brushes thoroughly in between colors. We’re using lots of colors, just like Vincent van Gogh did.

First grade will continue to draw their self portraits in oil pastel.

Kindergarten learned about the Russian abstract painter Wassily Kandinsky, and how colors and abstract painting can make you feel different emotions. We looked at several of his paintings, but pretty much everyone agreed that “Squares with Concentric Circles” (1913) made everyone feel happy! We learned that concentric means circle within a circle, sharing the same center. Students drew many concentric circles in 6 squares, making some thick and some thin. Next week we get to see how oil pastel resists watercolor in between our circles.

Kindergarten listened to a story and identified colors and patterns, after which they colored their portfolios.
First grade looked at self portraits by French artist Paul Gauguin and started to draw themselves in oil pastels.
Second graders looked at the work of Vincent van Gogh and we discussed how color and texture can indicate how an artist is feeling. They sketched themselves from observation, and will use tempera paint next week to finish their drawings.
Third grade learned about Op art, and drew their hand and arm in 3D style.
Fourth grade began their self portraits by looking at Pablo Picasso’s cubist paintings. Cubism incorporates multiple viewpoints, and the students thought it was pretty crazy to draw themselves from the front and the side!
Fifth grade observed several self portraits by the German painter and print maker Albrecht Durer, the earliest of which was drawn at age 11. They studied their facial proportions, and learned about value, which is how light or dark something is. They will use a range of pencils from 6B to 6H to incorporate value in their drawings, and learn to blend shadows with a tortillon.
Sixth grade completed insect names, which looked at positive and negative space as well as symmetry. They moved on to study work by the Pop artist Roy Lichtenstein, and discussed whether it was correct or not to appropriate someone else’s work.
They chose an Onomatopoeia word to illustrate, and will use black, white, primary colors as well as the Ben Day dots Lichtenstein used in his work.
Seventh and Eighth grades have been working on one point perspective buildings, with warm, cool or cloudy skies.